DailyOM - Conscious Money: Living, Creating, and Investing with Your Values for a Sustainable New Prosperity by Patricia Aburdene

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Conscious Money: Living, Creating, and Investing with Your Values for a Sustainable New Prosperity

BY Patricia Aburdene

Why not make money and make a difference, too?

A revolutionary blueprint for growing wealth, finding fulfillment, and changing the world by living your values.

In the emerging era of Conscious Money, we achieve prosperity by tapping into the power of values, consciousness, and sound economic principles. By applying the wisdom of Conscious Money to your personal finances, you can build a foundation for sustainable wealth and true fulfillment. No longer will you need to choose between your core values and your paycheck. Instead you’ll expand on-the-job creativity, grow income through conscious practices, and change the world as you:

Most conscious individuals earn, spend, and invest Conscious Money in their own country, state, and community. At the same time, it is important to recognize that we are also becoming global citizens. To involve yourself in the world at large, however, whether socially or financially, you need a global perspective. This chapter explores the international dimension of Conscious Money, as well as the opportunities and responsibilities of global citizenship. Yet, we must not forget that the best way to be accountable globally is often with local action.

Wherever you live, work, invest, or do business, be it in Europe, Africa, Latin America, Australia, the Middle East, North America, or Asia, you must balance auspicious possibilities for adventure, fulfillment, and the growth of your Conscious Money with a clear intention to confront and help resolve tough global challenges. Finding that balance calls for the wisdom, understanding, and creativity that can only be sourced through values and consciousness.

Today’s global economy is increasingly integrated and interconnected. The financial climate of Europe or Asia influences people in North and South America—and vice versa. The human community is ever more global too. People are instantaneously linked in real time via cell phone, laptop, or tablet. We witnesses news events, from weather disasters to royal weddings, as shared events, reminding us that we are all in the same boat.

These common experiences reflect and underscore the growing sense that we participate in a collective consciousness that is moving toward unifying the people of this planet. Despite our many differences, humanity is evolving toward a similar groupthink or global cohesiveness.

Millions and millions of people the world over pursue spirituality in ways that have the potential to expand human consciousness. A decade ago, Time magazine reported that ten million Americans meditate.1 But a 2007 US government survey showed the figure was then now twenty million—and is probably growing still.2 Although it is impossible to deter- mine how many people meditate globally (and I have diligently tried), every major world religion, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, and many more, advocates contemplative practice akin to meditation, and all are designed to expand human awareness.

People can and do expand their consciousness in many other ways, such as yoga. As with meditation, it is very difficult to estimate the number of yoga practitioners. Yoga Journal put the figure of US yoga fans at 16 million in 2008.3 But it has clearly expanded since then. In the birthplace of yoga, India, whose population exceeds 1.2 billion, millions more practice yoga. In recent years, growing numbers have become yoga fans, or yogis, in Europe, North America, South America, Australia, and Africa. One yoga website estimated the world’s total number of yoga practitioners to be in the hundreds of millions. But if that figure is one the high side, an estimate of 100 million worldwide is not, given the well- documented Yoga Journal figures for the US.

Between yoga, meditation, and the wide range of other contemplative activities, including but not limited to prayer, martial arts, and journaling, it is reasonable to conclude that Earth may indeed be home to hundreds of millions of conscious individuals.

People the world over desire many similar things, including financial security. They also honor many of the same values. So, the question of how to merge money and meaning naturally arises, although not immediately. As people attain greater material well-being, many may decide to spend thoughtlessly at first. (That certainly occurred in the developed world). Choosing Conscious Money on a larger scale, such as at the national level, requires a collective consciousness and commitment to reject financial distortions like bribery or corruption. Such change is possible, as people observe the unhappy consequences of unconscious money, appreciate the benefits of more conscious financial behavior, and demand the financial infrastructure to encourage it. Along the way, individuals start to ask how they might spend more mindfully, perhaps expressing values like sustainability. In Latin America, for example, although poverty persists, many have earned middle incomes for some time and there is a strong interest in conscious consumption, as you will see later in this chapter. As the collective forces of money, values, and consciousness con- verge and strengthen in the world economy, we are beginning to see Conscious Money emerge globally.

Conscious Money as a global movement rests on the truth of unity: Earth is our collective home. As we enjoy its blessings, we must also accept the responsibilities of shared planetary stewardship. The European Union, in its willingness to post guarantees for financially troubled Greece, Italy, and Portugal in 2011, was expressing the truth of Unity: “We are all in this together.” Although few are confident that Europe’s financial issues are fully resolved, there can no disparaging of the valiant efforts European governments have made to preserve the European Union. In continuing to meet that responsibility, Europe acts to stabilize not just its own economy, but the world’s.

In this global community, Conscious Money can play a powerful role in promoting peace and prosperity. When individuals from different nations, even unfriendly ones, do business or forge beneficial economicbonds, they must get to know each other as people. In an early example of this in the 1980s, when the United States and the former Soviet Union had not yet agreed to limit nuclear weapons, many people, myself among them, embraced the motto “World Peace through World Trade.” Similarly, the global friendships that emerge from travel, study, and work abroad, exchange programs, international conferences, internships, and volunteering, help heal frayed emotions, foster common economic interests, and reduce the potential for conflict. That is love in action.

By contrast, the impulse toward isolationism is a product of fear, which freezes the flow of prosperity, thereby dampening economic growth. When we recognize—and take responsibility for—the ways in which we share the same humanity, consciousness, and many of the same economic interests, opportunities for equitable trade and shared financial blessings grow exponentially.

As Conscious Money expands globally, we can see the world anew, envisioning fresh opportunities for ourselves, our children, and our grand- children to live, work, and invest in a world of peace and prosperity. It’s not economics alone, but economics supported by shared consciousness that lays the groundwork for this scenario.